Placement student ensures Volkswagen's sales sums add up to employability boost


The fast-paced world of Volkswagen is giving a Business and Management degree student a hugely worthwhile one-year work placement.

Vanessa Erivona completed the first two years of her degree at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) before securing a placement with the Volkswagen Financial Services team in her home town of Milton Keynes.

Vanessa Erivona in new Audi A8

Vanessa Erivona gets behind the wheel in the new Audi A8

She began her one-year placement in June and has been given a dual role, working on the management and development of VW’s financial services with the Product Team and also with the Campaign Development Team.

The 21-year-old said: “I have always had an interest in business and I wanted to do something that gave me a more rounded view of business in general.

Vanessa Erivona with the new Audi A8 resized

“I’d already had quite a lot of work experience but this time I wanted something in which I could incorporate my studies as well.

“We look at the financial product to see if it needs to be changed; this part of the role is more about ideas and research development.”

The campaigns team works on three-monthly cycles and Vanessa has been working on the financial services campaign offers that will be rolled out for VW’s specific brands during the next quarter.

Vanessa Erivona with her VW colleagues cropped

One of Vanessa’s tasks is being responsible for checking that all the campaigns available on the websites are correct to the smallest detail and are communicated properly to the digital marketing teams.

“I love the mix of it because I’m reporting into two managers and I have to adapt for each,” she added. “The Campaign Development Team are more fast-paced and you have to support in-brand meetings to capture their requirements and help shape future offers, whereas the research allows you to develop your skills.

“It really keeps me on my toes if I’m presenting research back to people. As time goes on, I am also learning more about myself and how I am changing and maturing. This placement I feel will put me in a good position for my final year to tackle the work coming my way.

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“I was quite shy whereas now I have to hold meetings with other managers and attend big meetings with senior people.

“Being here has really validated the hard work I did in my first two years of studying at DMU and I would urge other students that uni goes by so quickly, to get the most out of it, you really need to think about a placement year.”

Vanessa was delighted with the way VW staff have made her part of their teams but also praised the support she had from the DMU Placements team, in particular with the way they helped her prepare for the psychometric tests that gained her the opportunity at VW.
Posted on Tuesday 14 November 2017

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